An aide to former President John Dramani Mahama, Lawyer Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, has described as pure mischief the circulation of an empty chair with ex-President John Dramani Mahama’s name embossed on it at the 63rd Independence Day celebrations which took place in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region.

According to him, state protocol team should have known in advance, hours before the start of the event, whether the invited guest could make it or not.

“ . . you did not see the advance team of Ex Presidents John Mahama and Rawlings, but you intentionally place a chair there and you circulate the pictures through your presidential staffers who are in charge of social media. When you do that, quite clearly, the motivation is that you are deliberately seeking to ridicule them; that is pure mischief . . .

" . . why will you want to have any engagement with such a group of people? Because, whatever they do is not noble; all their mindsets are evil. In any serious country, you will know 30 minutes ahead of time that the man will come or not . . . if their intentions were noble, genuine, you will not have taken pictures and sent them to your social media guys to splash them around,” he chided.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, Lawyer Edudzi Tamakloe accused the ruling NPP government of always seeking ways to denigrate former President Mahama and alluded to the 62nd Independence Day Celebration in Tamale, alleging that the NPP instructed GTV not to capture the arrival of former President John Mahama.

“ . . .every opportunity that Pius and the President's hype men get, it is to demean and vilify John Dramani Mahama, and sometimes you wonder exactly what crime John Mahama has committed against the NPP,” he bemoaned.

" . . .why did the ruling NPP not show an empty chair with former President John Agyekum Kuffour's name affixed to it at the 62nd Independence Day Celebration in Tamale?" he quizzed.